End of Life for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3

Red Hat Enterprise 3: End of Life Notice

Today, Red Hat announced the 6-month notification for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 3’s end-of-life (EOL). The regular life-cycle for RHEL 3 will end October 31, 2010. After this date, support from Red Hat will stop. RHEL 3 was first released in October, 2002.

What does End of Life Mean for You?

• There will be no more bug fixes, enhancements or security errata updates for your operating system.
• If any security issues arise, your server will not be patched.
• Data centers will stop supporting RHEL 3.
• No new installs for RHEL 3 will be possible.
• If your system fails, you will be forced to upgrade.
• We have already seen one large provider end support for RHEL 3.

If you are enrolled in our server backup program, we can do bare-metal recovery into your existing OS but any new deployments will have to be a newer version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

What to do?

I recommend that anyone wiith RHEL 3 servers start planning to migrate to a current operating system, preferably RHEL 5 as it has the longest lifespan.

There are, however, a number of items to consider when putting together a migration plan:

• MySQL/PHP versions: RHEL 3 shipped with MySQL 3 and PHP 4.3.2. RHEL 5 ships with MySQL 5.0 and PHP 5.1.6. You may need to plan additional migration time to convert sites using older MySQL and PHP.
• Control Panels: Control panels can often handle migrations easily from one to another.
• Ensim: If you are currently on Ensim, most versions of the product have reached end of life. We do not expect the current version of Ensim, Parallels Pro 10.3.4, to be actively maintained.
• Custom scripts and outdated web applications: Be prepared to update any applications and scripts your sites may be running. This may require finding additional third-party support if you cannot update these applications in house.

The good news is that by replacing your RHEL 3 server, you can upgrade your hardware as well. You should be able to find a faster and maybe even bigger server than what was available when you commissioned your RHEL 3 system. Additionally, if you choose RHEL 5, you’ll have a new system that can last until 2014, when RHEL 5 reaches it’s EOL.